Seeking aid with freeze/lockup

[jakkar]

Salutations, people =)

I've recently purchased Ghost Master on Steam, after years of hearing the faintest odd whisper about it - And I'm floored.. I love it o.O

I'm crazy for both the management genre, from Dungeon Keeper 2, Startopia, to Theme Hospital, Evil Genius, and Dwarf Fortress to name the finest, and am disturbed and amazed I'd never had this recommended to me.

... Hooooowever, I'm having a rather nasty issue.

Problem follows:

After an undetermined period of play, under uncertain circumstances, the game will hardlock without warning. There will be no error message, the game will simply freeze. It isn't absolutely killing the graphics card, as I'm able to alt+tab and ctrl+alt+delete, however each time it locks up the ghost.exe process becomes invulnerable. It cannot be ended by any means, and sits with 0 CPU usage while 'System' itself takes a solid 50.

During this period, all commands are completely locked. I cannot reboot, shut down, standby or perform any system task, nor can I do so much as open Firefox. I can use any window already open, but no new tasks can be run

I have to manually reboot using the button on the tower - there's no other way out. There's no dumprep or any other faulty windows process stalling the process, I've checked the task manager carefully over four different instances of the problem.

Edit: Adding a few details.. It occurs as soon as 10-20 minutes after entering the game, but sometimes you can play for two to three hours without a crash. However, as the game has no manual save feature this means I have to play with the constant tension of knowing I need to rush to complete the objectives if I want to access the following level. I've crashed twice during Haunting 101, completed Calamityville without a single problem, but am now experiencing significant issues on Weird Seance, and am unable to complete it before the crash. My sneaky suspicion is that the air elemental and Weatherwitch are causing the problem - their gust/wind effects sometimes cause some minor black graphical artifacts to flicker around the screen, and the only correlation I can find between action and crashing might be that it occurs while I've got a lot of atmospherics going on, a lot of wind, thunder and rain coinciding while chaos erupts in the house.

...

So far, I've tried disabling the Steam Overlay, I've minimised/disabled all ingame display options, EAX wasn't running in the first place. None have prevented the issue.

I have tried disabling sound acceleration (Usually the final fix for old games, I find), but cannot be absolutely sure whether or not that works as sometimes I can play for hours without a freeze. I know for sure disabling sound acceleration is not an option to play, however, as this eliminates most game sound effects and turns dialogue into buzzing noise.

I've also tried restricting the game to one CPU core, but this causes the game to skip frames and become unplayably laggy. Disabling one core during a lockup did however cause the game to run for five more seconds before resuming the locked state, but I could get nothing more from it. .. Leading to my suspicion it might have been core related, like Grim Fandango, System Shock and Thief.

My specs:

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 6000+
Geforce 8800GT
Soundblaster Audigy (Unsure of exact model)
2gb RAM
Windows XP

I apologise for bothering you with this *grins* I'm no IT technician but I'm generally able to fix my own problems, and this one has me stumped. Google is a no-go, there's not a single mention of this specific problem with Ghost Master anywhere, and I've checked this forum, the Good Old Games GM forum and the Steam GM forum..

I don't think much can be done, it's likely a deep down incompatability with my specific graphics or sound card - both of which are known to be occasionally.. Unruly, with certain games. Entirely uncooperative, rather.

I was impressed looking back through the years - the support you've offered people has been awesome, particularly Nemesis. On the behalf of all and sundry, thanks =)

I'll check back daily, let me know if you need any further information, or have any ideas. I really, really want to play this game. I thought I had exhausted this genre/style of games completely by the time I finished Startopia.

- Jack

[Nemesis]

Hi there, Jack. Welcome to the forum! It's a strange problem you've got there, but it isn't the first time I've seen it happen. Unfortunately this problem has got many possible causes. It can be CPU-related. Or memory-related. The last time I encountered it, it was a problem with the network domain controller! There you go... it's a difficult problem to solve. But we'll try fixing it nonetheless so here we go! First question: what brand antivirus do you have and have you tried disabling it?

[Gammer]

welcome jack, I had aproblem like this whenever I use tricia (sorry if its spoiler) . Anyways your problem is weird.

[jakkar]

I use AVG (free) antivirus and Kerio Sunbelt firewall, also the free version.

I have tried disabling them and disconnecting from the net, and I believe I still experienced the crash but will doublecheck over the day.

I'm fairly sure, so let us assume it didn't fix the issue and move on from there - if it does appear to fix it within the day I'll update here to let you know =)

My thanks. Forgive me if I'm being a little vague, this crash can sometimes occur as regularly as every 10-20 minutes as I said, but other times, other levels, or just at odd times I've played hours without a problem. Which makes me edgy about asking for help, but there are times I'm losing an hour of progress at a time, and I don't want the frustration to lead me to stop playing a game this good =)

And yes, I do spend hours at a time on single levels.. It's a reason I dislike the pumpkin reward system; I don't want to feel rushed to beat these levels for any reason. Haunting is an artform, not a crude race to the finish line!

I want to build tension, alter the weather and observe their reactions, make them fear individual rooms, whittle them down one by one.. Mwahaha x]

[Nemesis]

A true Ghost Master! Anyway, what else do you have running in the background? Copy protection and CD copy software, malware protection and PC "boost" tools can also cause unexpected behaviour!

[jakkar]

Allo again =)

I'm pleased to say that the freezing problem has, for the moment, ceased to be. I cannot readily explain it. It could relate only to Haunting 101 and the first Frat mission with Ted Gable and his fratmates/lucky and terroreyes - Although I've been able to play Facepacks and Broomsticks without a problem.

I've not experienced a single crash or freeze since we last spoke - I've played mostly with my internet connection disabled and the AV/Firewalls off - but with the random nature of these crashes I can't say whether this is definitively the solution.

I'll return to this thread if any problems persist, but leave this message to anyone else experiencing similar issues in future; First remove unnecessary background problems and overlays like the Vista sidebar or the Steam Overlay - then try turning down sound acceleration - then consider updating video and audio drivers, another thing which may have helped me, as I had a slightly out-of-date graphics driver after a downgrade for another old game - and finally try disabling your internet connection and eliminating your virus protection facilities, though at your own risk and as a last resort.

Good luck, and don't give up - the game is more than worth your patience and frustration if you're having trouble with it.

Thanks Nemesis =)

[Nemesis]

You're welcome.